


The Ghost of Acounting

by LynnaeKenzington



Series: TFTBl/Borderlands New-U/BA PA AU [1]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: (A.I. part comes later), Gen, Jack and Vaughn kinda-role-swap, Jack never stays dead(spolier), connon rewrite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2019-01-01 00:06:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12144144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LynnaeKenzington/pseuds/LynnaeKenzington
Summary: ----I saw a vid where someone switched Vaughn and Jack's places {https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9fzaHCahbaM}, though they didn't make Jack right. But that gave me an idea and since this is short I thought I'd do it.Preface:Hyperion is in jeopardy after a series of events leaves the company penniless. Where'd all the money go? Handsome Jack accidentally killed the man responsible before he could find out, and now he's stuck with the unwilling accomplice to track down the stolen trillions with a short and buff nerd's A.I. ghost to guide them. But with Jack off the station to ensure he gets what he came for those back on Helios start to get some very rebellious ideas.Oh? How's Jack still alive? Well, a New-U to you too.





	1. Jack's Final Monologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I figured out a little bit ago that this wasn't so short, so here's Ch 1-2.

 

The ground shook with the weight of the fallen Warrior and hailing station, the floor of the volcano hissing as molten lava was forced out of cracks in the rock. The surviving vault hunters staggered, tripping over one another so as not to die by their own mistake.  
              Because this was their mistake.  
              And Handsome Jack was going to make them pay for it-----!  
His feet buckled beneath him, a searing pain exploding in his gut. His masked face glanced down, only to see his stomach belch up more of his blood; as if he wasn't already bathed in it.  
              A reminder of all the wounds he had suffered.  
              Of all he had failed.  
The eiridium shield dropped with a blinding light and he stumbled back.

              "No, no, no... I can't die like this... Not when I'm so close..." he could feel the anger bubbling back up in his chest, burning it's way to the surface like the lava around him, and he screamed his curses at his killers. "And not at the hands of a filthy bandit!"  
              His body didn't appreciate his efforts, lashing back out at him with a wave of agony, but he fought through it. _They had to know..._  
              "I could have _saved_ this planet! I could have actually restored **_order_**! And I wasn't supposed to die by the hands..." _...for Angel's sake_. "of a CHILD KILLING PSYCHOPATH!!" He wailed, voice hitching at the peak of his outcry.  
              His shoulders quaked with anger and fresh grief. He had failed. He had actually failed her. He couldn't accept that.  
              So Jack did what he did best.  
              He assigned blame.

"You're a **savage**! You're a **_maniac_** \--" his voice was cracking, and he lowered it to save his venom, "You are a bandit, AND I AM **_THE GODDAMN HERO_**!!" He shook his fist and stomped his boots to enforce that point.  
              They were not going to forget this.  
              He would not **_let_** them forget this.  
              He wouldn't let them see the tears welling in his eyes.

"The Warrior was practically a _god_! How- _How in the HELL have you killed my Warrior_?!" Jack gasped for air. It was getting harder and harder to speak; to breathe. He could feel something warm and sickly pooling in his punctured lungs---drowning him.  
              "You idiots! The Warrior could have brought peace to this planet! No more dangerous creatures, no more bandits, Pandora--it would have been a _PARADISE_!!"  
              He hacked and coughed, unable to form words. His vision was going hazy again.  
              Beside him the siren bitch spoke.

"This is the end, vault hunter. Either you kill Jack, or I’ll do it for you."

              So... even in this state, she wanted to finish the job.

"What's it gonna be?"

              'To hell with both of you,' is what Jack wanted to say.  
              But he couldn't. He could barely even stand.  
              He was swaying like he was drunk.  
              Or on a sea sailing ship.  
              But he felt so floaty...  
              You're loosing oxygen to your brain, dum dum...

Jack tried to focus on the vault hunter in front of him, blinking tears and blood from his already shitty vision.  
They were just standing there: staring at him in his own likeness....  
              He felt like he was going to fall flat on his face at any moment...

....

The vault hunter lowered their rifle.  
A---if Jack was seeing this right---look of pity on their face.  
On his face.

The bitch didn't miss her chance this time.

***

He woke up shuttering, gasping, and unnaturally cold.  
Every fiber of his being felt sore, raw and inflamed; every nerve a live wire that sent tremors throughout his body, fingers curling and twitching uncontrollably.  
              It was agony incarnate.  
              But he was **_alive_**.

It took him forever to realize it, the pain of revival too much for his shattered psyche.  
              How could Timothy ever **_stand_** this?  
Jack was curled into himself, hands pressed against his face where the scar was.  
              Where it _was_.  
His hands traced over it, but felt no burn of eiridium lodged in his face.

A hysterical laugh rumbled in his chest and crawled its way up and out of his throat.  
              He flipped onto his back, lungs--so free and filled with air--heaving as he cherished the fact that he was simply alive. The sound echoing around the dark empty room.  
              Panting, it took him several minutes to recover any form of a thought process. But when he did, his face hardened and his laughter died away.

              He, Handsome Jack, was alive.  
              And those bandits weren't dead yet.

He stood up, groaning, and tried to pull himself up on something golden and cushioned beside him, but staggered as it rolled backwards under his weight, dancing away from his grasp.  
              Glaring at it Jack realized it was his office chair; the obscene pleasure throne he had made for himself. A few moments of blinking and other such familiar sights met his eyes, his office unfolding itself around him while Elpis gazed at him from behind and below.  
              _The New-U_. Jack realized suddenly, noticing how some objects had fallen when his desk had risen up to reveal the machine before vanishing from sight. Jack praised his foresight in choosing to install that instead of the immortality skeleton prototype; it was all too plainly clear which one had proven to be of actual use.  
              Reaching out for the desk instead he managed to drag himself onto unsteady legs. He couldn't understand why he was shaking so much, why he felt so weakened---the damned device was supposed to grant life, not turn him into a wobbling baby.  
              The annoyance was enough to get his mind to focus, and with an ungraceful slap of his hand he activated his emergency call button.  
              "Mar-Marinznè," he choked, hating how frail his voice sounded. "You alive sir?" The PA questioned lightly. It wasn't an accusation or an indifferent remark. The woman was as paranoid as he was, she needed to hear it from his lips.  
              "Y-yeah..." Jack was so out of breath, "T-the bandits---"  
"The moonshot is still trained on their location," Inznè said, catching on to what he needed instantly, "would you like me to give them hell for you?---We could end up losing your cloaking device, it'll take me a few more minutes before the drones I dispatched are in a position to retrieve it and the other things the Warrior magically seems to have dropped upon its death---the hunters are currently scavenging through them." A pause. "---It looks like they already grabbed your mask."  
              Jack's hands clenched on his desk, his breathing turning more ragged. "I want them dead, Inznè, if we lose some things in the process than that's something I'm willing to sacrifice."  
              He had already sacrificed so much already.

***

Feeling the station tremble as the moonshots discharged Handsome Jack fell back into his chair, lounging lopsidedly with a hand thrown over his face.  
              Inznè knew what to do, she was sharp that way. Shutting down all the other New-Us after her boss had been safely revived, then proceeding to eliminate the vault hunters with extreme prejudice.  
              It brought a slight smile to Jack's lips. This had partially been her backup plan for if he died, prompting this over the robotic option. Jack hadn't really protested, and even though it had meant dealing with the bandits again and again he had enjoyed watching as they stupidly got themselves killed over and over. Useful, expendable research test subjects.  
              Jack chuckled to himself.

              Yep, Marinznè was his kind of character; a sociopath nearly after his own nature.  
Nearly, in the facts that she preferred tearing apart someone's mind over their body and that she was an altruistic asexual.  
How she ended up as _his_ PA confused him sometimes: but he had come to know that that 'caring' side had a flip trigger switch the same as his anger did, able to shut off all emotional attachment in order to laugh at self pity.  
              It was down right _cold_ , and if he ever could have he would have most definitely banged her by now.

As it was, even he wasn't stupid enough to want that death wish, especially with all the deliciously open emotional wounds he had right now....

Jack rubbed at his face again, feeling the line of the scar. The eiridium was gone, the alterations they had made to his revival coding having eliminated it and the radiation like poisoning his old body had gotten from being around the stuff.  
              But the scar was still there. It was almost like an actual wound, thin and healed over from years of recovery. It was normal looking, and the only thing altering his otherwise handsome face, the burns he once suffered now only in his memory. Even his eye had been repaired, seeing perfectly as he gazed at his green iris once more. (He kept a mirror nearby, was that so bad for someone like him?)  
              Jack scrunched up his face and flexed the skin. It didn't even feel tight or tender---well, any less tender than the rest of him. His brow furrowed at his reflection. That really confused him. When the bandits bounced back to life they seemed just fine enough, able to jump into battle with a few gritted teeth. Tim had mentioned it hurt, but this? This was a hell of a lot more than simple hurt.

The door to his office slid open quietly, the soft gust of air accompanied by determined footfalls. Military boots with a commanding step.  
              He'd never thought to really question that before.

"The Vault Hunters have been taken care of sir." The woman said as she approached, adjusting her glasses with a fingerless gloved hand as she came to perch on his desk. She wore something between a navy and dark violet male's suit, the difference proving to leave her waist unflattered. Her lilac eyes focused on Jack, almost glowing in the low light with an unreadable yet dark gaze. The CEO didn't fail to notice it; the look he shot her back nothing less than withering.  
              That was his one problem with her. The little wicked was always looking for weakness: whether to nurture it or to torture it he could never predict.  
              "Zer0 is alive isn't he." Jack guessed.  
              A tiny smile twitched across her face.  
"No matter how much you want it to be so sir, you can not shoot something intangible with a bullet and expect it to die. Even if said bullet is a moonshot." Jack hunkered down a bit more grumbling slightly, and her smile twisted into something sinister.  
                           "Lilith is dead. I made quiet sure of it."  
Handsome Jack glanced up at her, not quiet sure to trust her at her words. But that vicious mirth only came from Marinznè winning, and she had **_hated_** Lilith.

"Good." Jack said. His hand slid down his face, breath having eased up from spending time in the auto injecting chair. He made a face at her.  
              "I made some alterations to things to help with your return;" she said lightly, "as I suspected it didn't work as smoothly as we could have hoped." Her eyes glittered. "You're hurting, aren't you?" It wasn't a question. She gave a little sigh. "We tried to work the scan of you in with Timothy's old one, hoping to get rid of the poison," Violet eyes trailed the line on his face, "but it appears like eiridium interferes with the scanning process and some things may have been addled."  
              His fingers traced over the scar again.

"Why do I still have it?" Jack questioned, his voice tinting. Inznè didn't even flinch.  
              "Sir, its as much a part of your soul as your eyes; you would be incomplete without the memories it carried." She slipped something out of her coat.  
              "I've made you a new mask; it fits to your face without the clamps. It has cybernetic additions as well, about a quarter of what an ECHOeye can do but better than nothing. It's skin tone can even shade to look natural for once." She handed it to him and he turned it over in his hands. "Although... you could try going without it. I made sure the mark was bearable; it could be a battle scar instead of a brand."  
              Handsome Jack ignored her and slipped the mask onto his face, hearing little breaths of air as the material turned almost fluid and melted onto his features. He let out a little sigh as it did.

***

"What about... Angel." Jack ventured.  
              It had been nearly an hour, just sitting in his chair, being soothed by chemicals and some healing hypos once his heart had settled down. Marinznè hadn't left the desk, using an ECHOtablet to check in with her scavenger drones down on Pandora. As he said this she turned the tablet off and set it down quietly.  
              "Like I said before..." her voice was gentler than it had been then, "eiridium interferes with the scanning. Even without that Angel refused to let herself be scanned. I tried, even dubiously, but she always knew to go back and delete anything that even resembled her scan. ....She deleted her A.I. form as well, and every copy I attempted." Inznè didn't cry, but her voice said enough. "She was as stubborn as you sometimes. And with this.... she really wanted to die."  
              Jack was frozen and trembling, physically unable to express the anger and grief he felt. He had tried. God damn it he had _**tried**_. Tried to change things away from what he had seen in his visions. He had failed.  
              And the little wicked knew it.

She was watching him intently, the same as she had the night they realized this was going to have to happen. She had nearly killed him then, given up all the attempts she had made to hide what she was and gain his trust, all just so she could do right by Angel. In the end she had made him vow to change things. Yet he had still failed.  
              Now he had to live with that.  
              The realization made him almost laugh.  
So... this was the siren's idea of retribution; to leave him suffering eternally from what he had done and failed to do. It was exactly her style; being in the perfect position to understand the worst pain one could feel came from feeling at all.

Handsome Jack didn't notice, but he was making sounds between sobs, hiccups, and chocked laughter. Tangled thoughts and memories of everything he made were twisting through his mind, crawling like rose vines to strangle his heart.  
              The secret siren watched him suffering, in a state of near total indifference.

....

Inznè slipped a hand into his hair, stroking it slightly, when she felt he had been broken enough.  
              It had been four hours since his revival, but Jack almost pined at the comfort like a wounded dog. The little wicked's touch did much to soothe him, a practice she was gifted with but had yet to use on this tortured soul. The man didn't stop crying, only lessened slightly as he focused on the calming distraction.

....

It'd be months before Marinznè trusted Jack to do anything but mourn, and would have preferred a year until giving him anything concerning running the company.  
              Unfortunately, other forces had their own plans in mind for the CEO. And it all started with a seemingly insignificant transfer of ten million dollars...

 

 


	2. The Ghost of Accounting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment if you want more story: if not I'll only add when i figure out how to phrase it perfectly. that could well be a year from now.  
> Writing is my career, not Fanfics, so I have to spend time on my series as well. this is just me doing some practice and having fun.

             .

Rhys was in a mild state of denial and depression.  
             He was currently sitting in his old office surrounded by Handsome Propaganda, having already scared off those workers that had tried to move his things to janitorial. Rhys was plain tired, profoundly exhausted from his Pandoran misadventure. The former middle manager sighed, head in his hands, and tried to convince himself it hadn't been a complete failure.

Pros:

  * Met con-sisters and made friends 
  * Met August, convinced him not to kill/turn us over to his mom, and made friends. 
  * Befriended Loader Bot 
  * Learned that he himself was surprisingly badass and let the rest of the station know it. 
  * Made sure Vasquez was as good as dead.



Cons:

  * Everything almost killed me. 
  * Almost got Vaughn killed. 
  * Almost got August and the sisters killed. 
  * Lost the money and became number one enemy of the accounts once they realized it wasn't entirely Vasquez's fault. 
  * Became numero uno on Assquez's hit list if he ever got out of Handsome Jack's office alive (unlikely but not impossible considering the PA had spared before). 
  * Also, he and Vaughn were probably going to get nothing less than fired for this.



Rhys was already reconsidering his decision to return to Helios after the shit show at the death race. The idea being it was better to possibly give up the truth than to run and let others add to the charges. The PA wasn't that hard on the fraudulent, typically just moonshoting them back down to Pandora with the skin on their backs a few miles from the nearest encampment (the same encampment that would be destroyed in just a day or so). Rhys wasn't sure why, but after what he'd gone through he felt he could handle whatever the damned planet could dish out: especially now that he had friends down there to ally with.  
             Rhys' musing was interrupted by Vaughn knocking on his door.  
             "You alright bro?" The short bespectacled man questioned carefully. Rhys gave a dismissive wave and leaned back in his rolly chair, a groan escaping him as his stretching popped several joints and tugged at sore muscles. "-~s'fine." He managed, turning his full attention on his friend.  
             Vaughn looked a bit antsy and uncomfortable, eyes flicking to the Handsome Jack posters as he closed the door behind him. Rhys noticed he had something clenched in his fist. Brows furrowed the mm recognized it as the same drive Vaughn had tried to give him during the 'socks' incident with the PA's pet raptor.  
             This time the accountant didn't try to hide it away and instead handed it to Rhys, face too mixed up with different emotions to read. "Here; I've been called up to the CEO's office---if something happens to me," he looked like he might be regretting this, "just plug it into your head and pray it works."  
             Rhys gave him a hard stare, glancing from his nearly tech inept bro to the drive in his palm. "Just what exactly is on this thing and why does it specifically need to be in my head?" Vaughn grimaced.  
             "An emergency measure, but if you try to checkout what's in it than we're both pretty much screwed." The look Rhys was giving him wasn't helping any. "---just, if the green light turns red plug it into your head. Got it? It even rhymes. If Red In Head." Vaughn tried to smile at his jab at humor.

***

...

Yeah... maybe Jack should have waited.

The look Marinznè gave him promised a slow and painful death.

Handsome Jack probably should have waited until **_after_** Inznè had used her special interrogation abilities on the thief before he got his hands round their dumb neck. But as it was, he hadn't, and the oddly buff corpse of the short young nerd was currently dangling uselessly in his fists while Jack himself was being glared down by a temperamental siren. And what the little wicked had come to tell him was enough to make him regret his impulsiveness.

***

All his money---every trillion and nickel Hyperion owned---had been stolen by an unknown hacker and gifted to this lowly strangled nerd. A nerd who promptly lost the drive containing said money when the ten million was blown to hell.  
             Perfect.  
             Just fricken **_perfect_**.  
Handsome Jack didn't care about how his PA had found out about this. She had her own methods for observing every detail of the company, station, and its inhabitants.  
             What the CEO _did_ care about was that he had been robbed and the second the other corporations realized that they would pounce on Hyperion like a wounded skag.  
             This was going to have to be taken care of quickly and quietly.  
             Not exactly Jack's strong suit.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment if you want more story: if not I'll only add when i figure out how to phrase it perfectly. that could well be a year from now.  
> Writing is my career, not Fanfics, so I have to spend time on my series as well. this is just me doing some practice and having fun.


End file.
